On Cults and Messiahs with Don Lattin

Don Lattin, a former journalist, is author of Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge; Following Our Bliss: How the Spiritual Ideals of the Sixties Shape Our Lives Today; The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America; Changing Our Minds: Psychedelic Sacraments and the New Psychotherapy; and Distilled Spirits: Getting High, and then Sober, with a Famous Writer, a Forgotten Philosopher, and a Hopeless Drunk. His newest book is God on Psychedelics.

Don shares insights from his investigative work on cults, messianic figures, and the spiritual movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. Lattin explores the intersections of spirituality, psychology, and power dynamics in religious movements.

00:00 Introduction
04:04 Jonestown and the religion beat
07:00 The evolution of cults and religion
11:51 Adida and the Fijian Ashram stories
23:01 OneTaste and sensual spirituality
29:00 Christian nationalism and Trump as a messiah
41:00 Historical roots of authoritarian spirituality
44:44 Parallels between cults and modern movements
45:57 The complexity of charismatic leadership
46:58 Conclusion

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director (with Callum Cooper) of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science.

(Recorded on September 28, 2025)

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